Carbon redevelopment slated to start this March

This is an artist impression of a redeveloped Carbon Public Market.| Photo courtesy of Megawide Construction Corporation

CEBU CITY, Philippines — A new face of Carbon Public Market will soon be underway.

This after the Cebu City government and Megawide Construction Corporation on Monday, January 11, 2021 signed the joint venture agreement (JVA) for the rehabilitation of the city’s largest wet market.

Mayor Edgardo Labella and Megawide Executive Director for Infrastructure Manuel Ferrer led the ceremonial signing of the JVA contract.

Ferrer told reporters that the costs for the project, which will be implemented through at least four phases, would be shouldered solely by Megawide.

Ferrer said they had allotted P5 billion for its first phase, and that it would take around three to four years for the entire rehabilitation project to be fully completed.

“These will be done in phases to ensure that livelihood of the vendors will not be disrupted while development is ongoing,” said Ferrer in a mix of Cebuano and English.

Phase 1 of the Carbon rehabilitation will cover the night market near Compania Maritima up to Warwick Barracks, he said.

Groundbreaking for the first phase is expected this March.

The Megawide executive said that they would be targeting to complete Phase 1 of the project by the 4th quarter of this year.

“With the groundbreaking targeted this March, we are eyeing to open the night market, which is Phase 1, by October this year,” Ferrer explained.

Carbon Public Market houses over 4,000 vendors that include stall owners and ambulant vendors, making it Cebu’s largest wet market and drop-off of raw produce from different parts of the island.

Both Ferrer and Labella assured the public that no vendors would be displaced during and after the construction, adding that they would be prioritized once the project would be completed.

“Once the development is ongoing, we have already identified an available space where they will be placed temporarily,” said Ferrer.

“It is also be part of our commitment that they will not lose their spaces in the new Carbon Public Market… There will be no displacement of vendors and no increase in rent. It’s going to be an inclusive redevelopment. Redevelopment should be the redevelopment of all,” he added.

Ferrer also said their firm and the city government agreed that the former would be ‘committing a guaranteed minimum payment’ to the latter.

As of this posting, reporters are still trying to get a copy of the full and signed copy of the JVA contract to determine further details about the sharing agreement between the city government and Megawide over the project.

Last March 2020, the city government disclosed that Megawide Construction Corp. submitted an unsolicited proposal to rehabilitate Carbon Public Market and Compania Maritima.

The engineering giant’s proposal, however, was countered by the Garcia-led Cebu CFI Cooperative with their P3.5-billion version of redeveloping it. /dbs

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